Forgotten History
by Canne
Summary: A series of vignettes tracking the relationship between Veronica and Lamb.
1. Chapter 1

**Title:** Forgotten History

**Author:** Canne

**Disclaimer:** I own nothing related to Veronica Mars. Sorry.

**Summary:** A series of vignettes tracking the relationship between Veronica and Lamb.

**Written:** October 17, 2006 (yeah, I totally forgot that I'd ever written these)

* * *

The summer before the 8th grade, Veronica decides that she is destined to become a basketball player. She makes this announcement at Sunday dinner. Her father's new Deputy is with them that night, and he mentions that he used to play basketball, before he switched to baseball. She begs him to help her prepare for tryouts. She is thirteen and begging is not shameful or pathetic, it is her only way of getting anything. She is too spoiled to realize that one day she'll need to find a new tactic.

So, for the next two months, Don Lamb comes over every Sunday afternoon at 3pm and he and Veronica play ball in her driveway. They come in laughing after every session and more often than not he stays to eat dinner with the family. She likes to watch his white teeth flash as he smiles after she makes a basket or the way his fingers curl around the ball when he dribbles. By the end of the summer, she is in love and as soon as she buys her new school notebooks she starts drawing hearts around DL + VM.

Basketball tryouts are held the first day of school, but the team list doesn't come out until the end of the week. As soon as the last bell rings on Friday Veronica sprints to the bulletin board outside the gym. Her name is not on the list. Lilly Kane, who has decided that this year Veronica will be her new BFF, has followed Veronica to the gym.

"That's awesome, now we'll have so much time to hangout together! And anyways, everyone knows that only the butch girls play ball, you're too cute for that. Next year, we're totally going to be cheerleaders!" Veronica smiles at Lilly and agrees, because disagreeing with Lilly is something she's too scared to do. She desperately wants Lilly to like her, and if playing with stupid pom-poms instead of an orange ball will ensure her friendship, maybe she's willing to make that trade.

After Veronica says goodbye to Lilly, watching her climb into the Lexus driven by the Kane family housekeeper, she walks downtown to the Sheriff's department. By the time she reaches the building, the tears she hid from Lilly have returned. She ignores Inga as she walks past her, heading straight for her father's office. He hugs her while she cries and doesn't tell her she's silly, which is what she half expected to hear. When she's finally done crying, he smiles and offers to take her out for ice cream.

As they're leaving, Don walks into the office, laughing with one of the other officers. He smiles when he sees Veronica, but for the first time she doesn't smile back. Instead, to her embarrassment, she starts crying again.

"I'm sorry." She sobs, while clinging to her father's hand. Don looks terrified, but he bends down to Veronica's level and wipes away her tears with his somewhat clean shirt cuff.

"Hey, shhh, it's okay." He says, lightly grasping her other hand. She stops crying, although her nose is still running. "It's not your fault. I know you did your best; the coach is the one who should be sorry. He's lost a stellar point guard."

"It's because I'm short." She whispers. "He said so at the tryouts, that I was too short to play."

"We know better, don't we?" Don says, placing a warm hand on her shoulder. She nods her head, while blushing. "And you can work hard this year, so that next year you can make the team at the high school."

"I want to be a cheerleader next year."

"Oh." Don says, and Veronica can't help but notice how disappointed he looks. "Well, don't think I can help you train for that. I'm not really adept with pom-poms." Veronica giggles and Don smiles a little before saying goodbye and heading back to his desk.

She gets her ice cream and that night for dinner her mother makes lasagna, Veronica's favourite. Lilly phones at eight, asking if Veronica can come to the movies on Saturday and her parents consent. On Saturday night Veronica receives her first kiss, from Lilly's brother Duncan. It's just a whisper of a kiss, a brief graze of his lips over hers in the darkened theatre, but it's enough for her to decide he is who she wants for her first boyfriend. Don Lamb keeps coming over for Sunday dinners and Veronica, even though she likes Duncan, still writes Mrs. Veronica Lamb in the margins of her notebooks.


	2. Name Calling

October 17, 2006

It took three months for Veronica to learn to call him Don rather than Mr. or Deputy Lamb. She turned bright red the first time she'd found the courage to use his name and he'd laughed at her, which hadn't helped. She'd been twelve and desperately in love with him.

It took exactly two weeks for her to go from calling him Don to Deputy Dumb or Lamb Chop. This change, of course, coincided with Veronica's adoption by Lilly Kane and the other 09ers. He stopped in his squad car one day as she and Lilly we were walking home and offered them a ride home. Lilly had sneered at him immediately. Veronica had smiled for a moment, before realizing that she wasn't allowed to do that anymore.

"Why don't you go back to playing cops and robbers Deputy Dumb?" She'd huffed, before glancing nervously at Lilly, seeking her approval. Lilly had been grinning and Don had wanted nothing more than to slap her pudgy little face until she was the same shade of red that Veronica had been the first time she'd called him Don. But she was an 09er, which in Neptune is something akin to a god. First lesson he learned from Keith after moving to Neptune: don't mess with the 09ers. So he takes their comments with a blank face, nodding his head lamely.

"Alright then girls, have a nice day." He'd said before driving off, dazed and far more hurt that he'd ever admit.


	3. Forgiveness

October 17, 2006

He uses his soft voice with Parker and he hopes that Veronica, sitting in the background, notices. This was the voice he should have used two years ago when she came into the department in a torn white dress with mascara running down her face.

He's been thinking about her too much lately, every time he hears about another on campus rape he worries that it's her this time. He knows that he'd do better this time, wouldn't let her down.

She had only been sixteen that morning in his office, a child. Somehow, over the two years previous, he'd forgotten how young she was. He'd forgotten that she still needed to be protected. He had become so use to trading barbs with her and her 09er buddies, to busting up their parties and being spat on, that it was sometimes difficult to remember that they were only children: cruel, jaded children, but children nonetheless.

After she had left that morning, he'd spent a half hour in the washroom dry heaving. Not for the first time, he wished that Keith was still Sheriff. But he also realized that it was him that Veronica had come to that morning, and not Keith. She could have gone to her parents, could have gone to the hospital, but instead she came straight to the Sherriff's department. To him because maybe, he let himself think, she still trusted him a little, despite her years of adolescent rebellion. But whatever trust had remained between them vanished the moment he dismissed her claim. Since then, their exchanges had only become more bitter, more cruel, and Don's not sure he knows any other way to speak with her now.

So this morning, when he sees Veronica in the raped girl's room, he has no way to respond but with malicious words, words he knows will hurt her. He's glad to see the hate and disgust on her face, as well as the pain that flashed quickly and then vanished. At least this way he knows he can still make her feel something.


	4. House Cleaning

October 17, 2006

"Get the fuck out of my house Mars." She's sitting on his couch, looking far too comfortable.

"Language Sheriff." She gasps in mock horror, before smiling up at him as she crosses her arms over her chest. Her feet are resting on his coffee table and he grits his teeth at the sight of her dirty shoes on his clean possessions. Years ago he tried the whole careless, messy bachelor pad. It didn't work for him. He likes his house clean, ordered. Veronica Mars, of course, has to come in and mess all of that up. She destroys the calm in the rest of his life, how did he not expect her to come here one day and do the same?

"I could arrest you for breaking and entering, you know that right?" He mutters as he moves to the kitchen to grab a beer. She, of course, follows him in.

"I do know that, but wouldn't it be kind of awkward at the station, when I tell all the guys that I'm really your secret love slave? I don't know Donnie, I though our relationship meant more to you than that." She's batting those artificially darkened eyelashes at him, with the worst fake-innocent look on her face that he's ever seen.

"Mars, swear to god, I have the handcuffs on me right now-"

"Kinky."

"You're a college girl now; don't you have some kegger to be doing illegal things at? I'd much rather arrest you there." Don sighed, pushing past her into his living room before reclining onto his couch.

"Geez, I'm so not feeling the love." Veronica quipped before bouncing down onto the couch next to him. "It's almost like you don't care."

"Will caring make you leave? Soon?"

"Why? Is there another nubile young blonde planning to break into your house at 11.30 on a Friday night? And here I was thinking Madison was just another pretty face; I didn't even know I had competition for my jail cell."

"What's wrong with you?"

"I'm bored." She sighs heavily, dropping back against the couch cushions.

"Bored." He repeats skeptically.

"Yes."

"And you couldn't rent a movie like other people? You had to break into the Sheriff's apartment?"

"You know, the funniest thing happened on my way to the video store now that you mention it. I was driving there and then suddenly I realized that it had been a while since I checked in on my beloved local law enforcer, so here I am."

"Mars, I didn't know you cared." He deadpans, before taking a long sip of his beer. There is an awkward silence for a while, while Don drinks his beer and Veronica glances around the room. He has no more wit left in him today, not after spending the entire day fielding questions on the Hearst rape case while trying to investigate another PCH murder that went down two days before. Of course, nothing's been in the media about the deader PCHer. No, it's much more interesting to read about pretty young girls being terrorized by some sicko than to hear about another Latino kid shot in the back. He was sixteen; what kind of sick town is this that teenagers keep getting killed? It's the pathetic kind of town that only cares when white kids are involved, either as victims or perps.

"Long day at the office?" Veronica asks, surprising them both with the lack of malice in her voice.

"Yeah." Don replies, leaning his head back and rubbing his tired eyes. "You?"

"Oh, normal day: class, lab, sting operation. Same old same old."

"Please tell me that this isn't something that is going to create more nightmares for me."

"No, just for me."

"Glad to hear it." There is another silence, but less awkward this time. Don still hasn't opened his eyes and he doesn't plan to.

"Do you remember when I tried out for the basketball team?" Veronica asks, out of the blue. If anything could cause Don to open his eyes, this is it. Veronica referring to the past is a once in a blue moon event. Especially the parts of her past where he played a part.

"Yeah." He replies, keeping his tone even, uncommitted.

"I…you looked so disappointed that afternoon when I told you that I didn't make the cut."

"I wasn't disappointed. You would have made a kick ass point guard, your coach was an idiot."

"No, no, you were great about that part. When I said that I didn't want to play basketball anymore, that I wanted to be a cheerleader."

"Oh, that."

"Yeah, that. Why?"

"Because that wasn't like you, you aren't a quitter, but you just abandoned that project. And maybe I was a little disappointed because I liked playing basketball with you every Sunday afternoon and then eating dinner with you and your parents. You were normal people with obnoxiously normal lives. I liked being a part of that, even if it was only for a couple of hours once a week. I didn't want to lose that."

"But you still came over for dinner." Veronica replies, looking confused.

"How long did that last?" Don asks, looking down at her. She thinks for a second and then has the grace to blush. "I know she was some kind of hero for you, but Lilly Kane did nothing good for you Veronica. She used you, just like she used everyone else in this town. She told you to become a cheerleader, so you quit basketball for the pep squad. She told you to be cruel to everyone who wasn't like her, so you stopped talking to me and your little, normal junior high friends. Nice balanced relationship you had there."

"Lilly was my best friend." Veronica tells him, in a voice that is strangely devoid of emotion.

"With friends like that…" Don says, trailing off, not brave enough to repeat the entire quote. Veronica is still sitting next to him, so he knows that he hasn't said anything that she doesn't already know.

"Lilly was…Lilly was insecure."

"Wow, that's a shock. Poor little rich girl, fucking half the guys in town so she can feel loved." When Veronica's palm connects with his face, he doesn't even flinch. He was expecting it. However, he doesn't regret his words.

"You didn't know anything about her Lamb." She barks, "Lilly was sweet and caring and, and…" She trails off.

"And you hated her, didn't you?" Don asks quietly, tilting Veronica's face so that he can see her eyes. "You hated how superficial she was, how she ridiculed everyone around her, how she treated her family, her boyfriend, her best friend. Lilly Kane was a pretty girl who died far too young and who many people loved but whom no one really liked." Veronica is crying now, not the sobbing kind of crying, the way Madison cried the morning after Don slept with her at the Grand, when he told her that he'd been drunk and that there was no fucking way he'd ever sleep with her again, but the silent kind.

"Lamb, I hope someone talks about you this way once you're dead."

"Hey, I just hope someone remembers me after I die." Don says, putting an experimental arm around Veronica's shaking shoulders, not sure whether he'll get tasered or sobbed on. She doesn't resist, so he pulls her to him, allowing her to cry onto his shirt, soaking it with her tears.

As far as Friday nights go, this has probably been the strangest one of Don's life.


	5. Liquor is Quicker

October 17, 2006

"You're back." He's surprised by how little he's surprised to find her on his couch. This time, he notes thankfully, her shoes have been left by the door.

"Why Donnie, is that any way to meet the little woman?" She cracks, smiling as he glares.

"You have no idea how excited I was when I thought you were leaving town for college."

"But how could I have left you? You might have felt like I didn't care anymore."

"It's over Mars, the romance is gone."

"Fine, tell me after I've paid my year's tuition. Shucks, if you'd only told me two weeks ago."

"Oh well, you win some, you lose some. Me, I seem to lose more than I win."

"Did Lamb get fleeced again?" She asks, tucking her legs under her body as she watches him shrug out of his jacket and take off his hostler. He empties the shells from his gun, before replacing it in the holster. When he looks up again, Veronica is staring at him strangely.

"What?"

"I never thought of you as a conscientious kind of guy, more as a go off half cocked dude."

"Surprises Mars are what make life interesting."

"Apparently. You, Mr. Sherriff, just keep unfolding like a flower." She uses her hands to express her idea of an unfolding flower, but it's her face he watches and not her hands. She's smiling, like she's actually happy for a moment, not mocking, not being spiteful, just talking for the pleasure of talking.

"Okay, I'm a flower and you're still racking up an impressive B&E record. Bored again?" He asks, going into the kitchen and grabbing two beers.

"Not so much bored as drawn to your animal magnetism." She smirks as he returns to the living room and lowers himself onto the chair opposite her.

"Here." He says, handing her one of the beers he'd brought out.

"But Sherriff Lamb, I'm a minor." She gasps breathily, batting her eyelashes again.

"Drink, don't drink. I don't care but I'm planning to get drunk tonight, so if you're going to abstain, give that bottle back." She looks at him for a moment then pops the tab on the can and takes a massive gulp. He's amused to see her wrinkle her nose as she swallows.

"Okay, we're going to have to drink a lot of these to get drunk. What we need is hard liquor."

"Spoken like a true boozer."

"You're not the only one who had a crappy day."

"So you've come to take it out on my liquor cabinet. Nice Mars, very nice." He rises from his seat, brushing her aside as he passes on his way to the kitchen. He grabs the bottles quickly and returns to the living room, placing the bottles and two glasses on the coffee table. "Here you are, Nancy Drew."

"Thank you nondescript Hardy boy." She pours herself half a glass of whiskey and he watches her tear up as she downs it.

"Yeah, you're a regular booze hound Mars. You already look a little green around the edges."

"Aren't you supposed to be the responsible adult here? Shouldn't you been trying to stop me from doing this rather than edging me on?"

"Veronica, for a couple of hours, don't make me worry about what you're doing. Please. I beg you."

"Aww, poor Donnie, worrying about little old me." Don finishes his beer and reaches for the bottle of tequila in front of him. He pours a full glass. "Wow, you really do want to get drunk."

"Yes, oh master of the obvious. I really, really want to get drunk."

"Why?"

"Because this town is fucked up beyond belief and the only way I can escape it is by getting so shitfaced that I have absolutely no memory the next morning." He downs the entire glass in three gulps, then pours himself more.

"Is that how you ended up with Madison?" Veronica asks in, if this is even possible, a hesitant voice.

"I don't remember." He laughs, "I don't even remember being at the Neptune Grand that night. What the hell was I doing there? I'm not exactly a regular there, you know? And why in hell did I think it was a good idea to sleep with an 18 year old 09er?" Veronica really has no way to respond to this, although she's upset by how sorry she feels for him tonight.

"So why do you need to drink tonight, why is Neptune more fucked up today than it was say last week or last month?"

"Marco Estevez was shot a week and a half ago and I've basically been ordered to stop the investigation. Phone calls every hour, yelling that we should be focusing on Hearst instead of some no good, Latino gangster. Except how do you tell his mother and his grandmother that you're going to drop his murder case? Just because they live in the wrong zip code, doesn't mean that they don't deserve the same service as the 09ers. Fuck, I hate this." He says, finishing his second glass. "When I signed up, I thought I was going to serve and protect. Serve everyone and protect everyone, not just the rich bastards that run this town."

"Oh Deputy Lamb, if only your election supporters could see you now, how screwed you'd be." Veronica says, somewhere between delighted and heartbroken. Emotions tonight are hard to define.

"If they were here tonight, I'd tell them to go fuck themselves."

"Damn, what I wouldn't give to have my tape recorder here tonight."

"Well, just get me drunk again Mars, I can almost guarantee a repeat performance, unless I accidentally end up in bed with a blond 18 year old again. Either way you'd win."

"I'll keep that in mind." It's a lame response, but it's the only one she's capable of at the moment. Her memory is overrun with images of Don and Madison in the elevator at the Grand and her mind is taunting her, forcing her to image what it would be like to be kissed and touched and fucked by Don Lamb. When she finally refocuses her mind, her cheeks are bright red and Don is starring at her.

"Veronica, I'm drunk. You are slightly less drunk. If you don't leave now, I'm going to kiss you. I'm going to kiss you in a way that the Kane kid and the Echolls brat don't even know exists. And I don't think, no, I know that I wouldn't be able to stop after that. So leave. Now." Don is embarrassed as soon as he's done talking, knowing that his little speech sounds like something straight out of one of the crappy Harlequin novels that Inga reads. But, regardless of there quality, his words scare Veronica and she's off the couch and at the door before he's even done talking, stumbling to put her sneakers on. Don remains on the couch, head tilted back, eyes closed.

"Bye Don." She says, and it doesn't escape either of their attention that this is the first time she's called him just plain Don in years.

"Don't drive home." He barks in reply.

"I wasn't going to." She snaps back, "I'll walk home, it's only ten or twelve blocks."

"Try not to get into trouble tonight Mars."

"Wouldn't dream of it." She says, actually meaning it. She slips out the door and shuts it firmly behind her. She leans against it for several moments, toying with the idea of turning around, walking back through that door, and letting Lamb do his worst. She's intrigued by the idea but realizes that they'd still hate each other in the morning; she'd probably hate him even more if the sex was good. And it would be good, she's sure of it. But her dad's expecting her home tonight and the idea of him somehow figuring out that she's here, and showing up with a shotgun does disturb her slightly. One dead Sheriff and one jailed ex-Sheriff would create a rather lawless Neptune. So Veronica walks away from his door and by the time she's home she's convinced herself that she isn't at all attracted to Don Lamb and that there is certainly no way that he, sober, would ever want her.


	6. Caring

Title: Caring  
Summary: AU from "Mars, Bars". Don realizes that someone does care.

* * *

Don's hands shake as he pulls his keys from his pocket. He watches his fingers as they try and force the wrong key into the lock, but he ends up focusing more on the spots of blood on his khaki cuff than on the door.

He wishes he could feel surprised when a small white hand covers his, squeezing it for a moment before taking the keys and deftly opening the door. He wishes he could feel anything. Surprise, annoyance, anger, anything.

"You're in shock." Her voice says calmly. No shit, he thinks, but she's right and he can't find the strength to voice his comment.

She pulls him into his dark apartment, flicking on the light switches as she moves through the rooms. In his bedroom, she hesitates for a moment before reaching up to unbutton his shirt.

"Taking advantage of me, Mars?" His voice finally works again, but he sounds pathetic and lost, which is more embarrassing even than having her loosen his tie.

"Screw you Lamb." She snaps but now it's her hands that are shaking. He can feel them tremble against throat. He winces as she pulls his tie over his head, the cheap fabric pressing uncomfortably against the gash that leads from his neck to behind his right ear.

In front of him, Veronica is frozen, starring at his red blood on her white fingers. The tie hangs briefly between them, crimson and khaki, like everything else he is wearing.

"I hate you." She finally says, still looking anywhere but his face.

"Right." He responds stupidly, looking over her head, watching himself in the mirror that rests above his dresser. He wishes she hadn't turned on all the lights; for once, he finds it painful to look at himself.

So much blood, he thinks. How much of it is his? The cut on his skull was the worst. Thirteen stitches and still blood oozes out. His arm, struck by a stray bullet fired by Sacks, stings something awful, but required only eight stitches to close. Even in his current state, he is perversely amused at the thought of showing that scar off at the next company picnic, watching Sacks turn red with embarrassment.

But, he reminds himself, he should be nice to Sacks. Without him, Don would be dead right now. Beaten to death by Grieco. Christ, how ironic would that have been? Beaten to death by a baseball bat? His father would have laughed, probably would have enjoyed telling Don's college teammates how he had died. Bastard.

Would anyone have even cared? Ten minutes ago, Don would have said no. But now, with Veronica standing in front of him, trembling with his tie in her hand, he realizes that he must be wrong.

"Why are you here?" He asks, letting his gaze drift down to focus on her face.

"I…the reports of your death were greatly exaggerated." She tries to smirk, but fails miserably. Her face collapses and the tears she has been holding back all evening finally roll down her face.

Don stares at her, with no idea of how to react. Eventually he grabs a box of Kleenex off the bedside table, passing it to her, trying not to stare. Even though he is terrified by this weeping girl, he can't help but feel at least a little happy that she cares enough to cry over him.

He leaves her alone in the bedroom, still crying, and goes into the washroom. His hands are still shaking and rather than frustrate himself trying to undo the buttons of his shirt, he pops the ones closes to his neck off and then pulls the shirt over his head, before dumping it into the garbage. The rest of his uniform quickly follows, and he feels better, purer, almost immediately.

The hot water of the shower relaxes him even further and as the water runs from red back to clear, he can feel his nerves settle. As he towels off and pulls on a tee shirt and pajama bottoms, his hands are almost steady.

She is still in his bedroom when he returns. He freezes in the doorway, unsure of what etiquette is called for when you find your adversary curled up in your bed.

"That's my shirt." He finally manages, noticing how distorted the Ranger's emblem is over her chest.

"Yes."

"Why are you wearing it?"

She rolls her eyes and in that moment Don knows that everything will be fine. "Because I want to."

"And why are you in my bed?" If it were any other day, if he hadn't almost been killed today, he wouldn't be asking these questions. He would be on top of her, inside her, already. But today he is too tired, too confused, to act as he usually would. And that, of course, is why he finds her in this position.

"Because I want to be." She says, meeting his eyes just for a moment. "But no funny business mister." She chides as he comes towards the bed and the climbs in.

They lie there, side by side, in awkward silence for several long moments. It is Veronica who finally moves, always the bravest. Don adjusts and then there they are, lying together in his bed. Veronica's head is on his chest, her ear over his heart, her hand grasping at his grey tee-shirt. Don's left arm wraps around her small body and he wonders if she can hear his heartbeat increase as his hand comes into contact with her bare back, where the shirt has ridden up.

"I didn't know you cared." He finally mumbles, on the edge of sleep. He feels her tears seeping into his shirt, above his heart, as she curves herself more tightly against him.

"I do." She whispers back, "but you'll never get me to admit it in public."

And even though he almost died today, even though there may not be anyone else in the world who would care if he did die, he is happier in this moment than he has ever been.


End file.
